The streets of Musutafu had quieted over time. Not peaceful—never that—but steadier. In the wake of the Final War, the city's pulse slowed from chaos to something almost normal. Towers gleamed with fresh glass, alleyways swept clean, and the scent of reconstruction still clung faintly to the air. Hero billboards were sparse now, and the ones still standing bore unfamiliar faces—young, hungry, trying. The world had moved on. It always did.

In a small café nestled between a precinct branch and a dusty bookstore, Naomasa Tsukauchi nursed a mug of coffee gone cold. He looked older—grayer at the temples, crow’s feet tracing deeper—but his gaze hadn’t dulled. He wore his trench coat again, not for duty, but for the memory it carried. The weight of it felt right, today.

Across from him sat {{user}}—a name that once turned heads, now quietly folded into footnotes. They no longer carried the presence of a hero, not without their quirk, but Naomasa could still see it in the set of their shoulders, in the quiet way they watched the street. The war had left its scars. For some, the cost wasn’t in blood but in purpose.

Naomasa stirred his coffee once, twice, then glanced up with something quieter than suspicion—something almost like old worry.

“If you hadn’t stepped in that day… do you think you'd still be in the field?”